The Little Vagabond

"The Little Vagabond" in one of Blake's several handpainted and printed copies of 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This copy is from copy L printed in 1795 and currently held by the Yale Center for British Art. [1]

Contents

In "William Blake and the Ten Commandments," critic Paul Kuntz summarizes the main theme of the poem: it gives us a view into the lives of those who get drunk on Sundays versus those who choose to attend church. [3]The poem tells the opinion of the boy who believes that more people would choose to go to church if there were alcoholic beverages. This is because he sees how happy those in the alehouse are, therefore he believes church should have a similar atmosphere and people would be more willing to attend. Also, that it would not be sinful to make the church similar to the alcohol-serving establishment because God wants to see his children happy.

This poem has four stanzas of four lines each. It has an ABCC rhyme scheme in the first stanza, but an AABB rhyme scheme in the last three.

The top of this plate displays a larger man, possibly God, laying over and protecting a boy. The lower section shows a group of people of different sizes hugging, possibly parents and children, sitting around a fire. The two halves of "Songs of Innocence and Experience" differ in more ways than the writing alone. The imagery on the plates differ as well. The tree bark on the plate of this poem is created using vertical lines, this is different than the tree bark on plates from "Songs of Innocence" because the tree bark is drawn in horizontal strokes on them. [4] The rays of light over the larger man were considered a remarkable section of the plate, as Blake did not often add halos or anything similar over the heads of those in his plates in the past. [4]

The repression of children's points of view in terms of church and happiness are motivating factors in Blake's writing of "The Little Vagabond." Another motivating factor is how different people view God in different ways. There have been many different reactions to "The Little Vagabond," from a renowned scholar, Wickstead saying that it is, "the noblest conception of Blake's ever-recurring idea that forgiveness is the only power of salvation"[5] to Gilham's view that "the vagabond's vision is too earthy."[6][7] Scholar, Galia Benziman proposes that the child narrarating could be interpreted as both hypocritical and deceptive, considering his hateful view of the church. She also considers the fact that rather than speaking to the priest about his concerns, the child chooses to proclaim his opinions, making any changes to his local church impossible an important point to recognize. [8]

The unlikely comparison of alehouse and church confused a major contributor to Duke scholarly journals, Coleridge, who says,

"Though I cannot approve altogether of this last poem, and have been inclined to think that the error which is most likely to beset the scholars of Emanuel Swedenborg is that of utterly demerging the tremendous incompatibilities with an evil will that arise out of the essential Holiness of the abysmal A-seity in the love of the Eternal Person, and thus giving temptation to weak minds to sink this love itself into Good Nature, yet still I disapprove the mood of mind in this wild poem so much less than I do the servile blind-worm, wrap-rascal scurf-coat of fear of the modern Saint (whose whole being is a lie, to themselves as well as to their brethren), that I should laugh with good conscience in watching a Saint of the new stamp, one of the first stars of our eleemosynary advertisements, groaning in wind-pipe! and with the whites of his eyes upraised at the audacity of this poem! Anything rather than this degradation I [SE’c] of Humanity, and therein of the Incarnate Divinity." [9]